Parlez-vous fran?ais? No, but my AI can. Is this the end for foreign language learning? England’s school-leaving A-level exam results this week included a 1.5 per cent yearly drop in entries for modern foreign languages, with sharp falls in French and German, extending a long downward trend. Student and teacher numbers have dwindled so far that some leading UK universities are looking at merging their language courses. Britons, like Americans, have long been linguistic laggards, sheltering behind English’s status as the global language of business and popular culture. Internationally, demand to learn English, and expanding languages such as Mandarin, remains robust. Even so, young people may question the need when translation apps can do the job. Une grosse erreur!
“Parlez-vous fran?ais（您會說法語嗎）？”——不會，但我的AI會。這是否意味著外語學習的終結？本周英格蘭中學畢業A-level考試結果顯示，現代外語科目報考人數同比下降1.5%，其中法語和德語跌幅尤為明顯，延續了長期下滑趨勢。學生與教師人數雙雙縮水，以至于一些英國的頂尖大學正考慮合并其語言課程。英國人和美國人一樣，長期在語言學習上落后，仗著英語在商業和流行文化中的全球地位而停滯不前。在國際范圍內，學習英語以及普通話等正在擴張的語言的需求依然強勁。即便如此，當翻譯應用能夠代勞時，年輕人或許會質疑學習的必要性。Une grosse erreur!